


A Girl, Too

by clearascountryair



Series: what the history forgot about us [1]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Background Zuko, Episode: s03e16 The Southern Raiders, F/M, Flashbacks, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Sexual Harassment, Missing Moments, Panic Attacks, Past Sexual Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Sokka (Avatar), background Aang, sokka and suki think they’re horny but it turns out they just have a lot of unaddressed trauma, sokka being a boy doesn't make his trauma any less real than his sister's, when you just want to be a 'normal' teenager but all your trauma creeps up on you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:55:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25902430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clearascountryair/pseuds/clearascountryair
Summary: She knows that this is stolen time.  Suki has been with the Kyoshi Warriors since she was barely five years old and she knows what it means to be a warrior.  She has given them her childhood, her youth, all of it.  She accepted long ago that she will never get to do normal teenager things, normal anyone things.  But here she is, with a boy her own age and kissing him like her life depends on it because, well, it does.  She knows that she is living on stolen time in a stolen life and she will savor every second of it.[Sometimes, Suki has to remind herself that the warrior and the girl are not in competition]M to be safe
Relationships: Sokka/Suki (Avatar)
Series: what the history forgot about us [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1879762
Comments: 23
Kudos: 125





	A Girl, Too

**Author's Note:**

> Please read the tags. I can't get over the fact that Suki was sent to an adult, co-ed prison and all that that implies

Sitting there behind the boulder, Suki convinces herself that she deserves two awards:

Award 1: A complete and total lack of discretion. “Wrong tent”? She’s lucky Zuko’s still earning everyone’s trust and can’t afford to tease her for it.

Award 2: Patience. Zuko has been in Sokka’s tent for way. too. long.

It’s not horniness that’s making her beg them to speed things up. Maybe a little, but it’s way more of an...emotional horniness? She laughs at herself at the ridiculousness of the thought, but it’s true. If Sokka were to march out of his tent and take her right there, in the open? Well, Suki would definitely not complain. But, if after Zuko left, she would be able to sit in Sokka’s tent and just stare at him until she can’t remember what the rest of the world looks like? That would be lovely, too. 

She has been waiting for an eternity when she thinks she hears Sokka call her name, but she’ll wait. It’s too risky. She’s certain she’ll hear Zuko return to his own tent for the night. She doesn’t expect him, however, to come and get her.

“I’m going to bed,” he says behind her.

She jumps and considers it very, very lucky that she didn’t scream and wake up anyone who would cause any other interruptions. 

“Cool,” she says. “Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool.” She wishes Toph was here to bash her head in with the boulder she’s leaning against.

“I think Sokka’s waiting for you.”

Suki lets out an absolutely mortifying snort of laughter. “HA! Like I care.”

To her utter shock (and her bar is pretty high), Zuko rolls his eyes. “Have fun, Suki,” he says before walking away.

Suki can wallow in her humiliation another day. A girl has needs and she’s not going to let _Prince Zuko_ of all people make her feel embarrassed.

“Oh, thank Tui and La and every other spirit out there,” Sokka all but groans when she slips into his tent and he sees that it’s actually her this time.

She lets out a laugh and looks around as he wraps his arms around her. His tent is not what she had expected. She was expecting her nose to be affronted with sweat and dirty socks and just general _boy_ smells. She wasn’t expecting the smell of wildflowers.

(It shows how meant to be they are, he’ll joke to her later, because he gathered the flowers to mask the very smells she had anticipated.)

It’s clean, too, which Suki suspects is just for her, and covered with candles and flowers, also just for her. She smiles as Sokka pulls away and takes her hand. They sit, him on his knees and her with one leg curled in and the other stretched out next to him. Sokka looks almost giddy as he leans forward to kiss her knee.

“I missed you.”

Suki runs her fingers through his hair. She likes it when it’s down like this. “It hasn’t even been an hour.”

“Don’t underestimate how long it takes me to miss you.”

She presses her lips to his before he can say anything more and, mercifully and predictably, Sokka melts against her. She wraps her arms around him and scooches forward on her knees until they knock his own. Sokka almost immediately drops so that he’s sitting on his heels and Suki can’t help herself—she moves forward again until she has her knees on either side of his hips and hovers by sheer willpower half an inch above his lap. 

She knows that this is stolen time. Suki has been with the Kyoshi Warriors since she was barely five years old and she knows what it means to be a warrior. She has given them her childhood, her youth, all of it. She accepted long ago that she will never get to do normal teenager things, normal anyone things. But here she is, straddling a boy her own age and kissing him like her life depends on it because, well, it does. She knows that she is living on stolen time in a stolen life and she will savor every second of it. 

(Other girls had, of course, snuck into town whenever young men were around and though Suki envied then, she never joined. Why taste something you know you’ll never get again? she had reasoned. The other girls told her it was because it was worth that one taste. She’s only now realizing they were right.)

She clutches at Sokka’s shoulders and he lets out a little whimper she swears she can feel in her veins. They maneuver themselves carefully. Cautiously, nervously, but not hesitantly. When she’s lying on her back with his pillow beneath her head and Sokka balancing over her looking equal parts terrified, mystified, and awestruck, Suki knows that this is the most content she’s ever been in her life. He drops his forehead to rest against hers. 

“Hi,” he breathes. 

She grins and runs a hand through his loose hair and takes in the sight of him: all flushed cheeks and bright eyes and goofy smile. Suki’s never been loved before, but she thinks this might be what it feels like, so she whispers back, “Hi.”

When he kisses her this time, it’s a bit more slow and a bit more sure and, after a moment, Sokka stops focusing so much on holding himself about her and presses himself against her and it’s new and different and absolutely something Suki could get used to. They stay like that for a while, with tender, timid hands exploring new areas of fabric to cling to. It’s only when Suki, breathless, can feel his kisses down her toes as if even they are grabbing at anything to ground her in a reality she’s rather forget, that Sokka pulls away, breathing hard as he once again touches his forehead towards hers with a soft, “Wow.”

“Yeah,” she manages to breathe with a giggle way too throaty to have come from her.

“I think you’re the most amazing person in the whole world.”

Suki bites her bottom lip to hide her joy and doesn’t miss the way Sokka’s lips just barely part as she does so.

“I’ve never met anyone like you,” she tells him. In another moment, she might expect him to laugh and tell her there’s no one like him. But in this moment, he simply pecks her lips once more before returning to staring at her. It shocks her, how comfortable she is under his gaze. And so she decides to shock herself and pulls at the hem of his shirt. Sokka’s smile grows impossibly wider as he gives her one more quick kiss before leaning back on his knees and pulling his shirt over his head. 

Suki pushes herself up on her elbows to watch as he smiles shyly at her from where he kneels, now shirtless, between her legs. He’s got one hand on the bottom of her own tunic, playing with the red material between his fingers as though he doesn’t know what she wants him to do. 

“Sokka—“

“I’ve never done this before,” he says quickly, color flooding his cheeks. “I, um, I’ve only ever even kissed one other girl and it was...it was not like this and I have no idea what I’m doing.”

Suki reaches up and cups his cheek in her hand. “Sokka,” she says softly. “It’s okay.”

“Okay,” Sokka repeats. “Okay,” he says and continues toying with her tunic before gazing up at her nervously through his lashes. “Have, um, have you—not that it matters! But, um...”

Suki tries to swallow before she answers. It’s a simple sentence, a word really. Just two letters. But her throat has gone inexplicably dry. She wants to shake her head but her neck seems stuck and her gaze lingers somewhere beyond his right shoulder. 

“Suki?”

Her breath comes in short gasps and she wants to tell Sokka that she’s stuck and he needs to help her and her eyes starting to sting and her tongue is too big for her mouth and her ribs are crushing her lungs and she can’t feel her feet and she doesn’t know where she is and it’s dark it’s very dark and it’s so hot and when someone touches her face, she pushes as hard as she can and scrambles into the cool night air back behind the rock and falls to the ground and heaves until there is nothing left within her to expel. 

And just like that she remembers that she is sitting in the grass behind a rock at their campsite and everyone but Sokka is asleep and she presses her hand to her mouth to contain a cry. 

Suki never used to cry. 

She whimpers and wishes she could bend the earth up around her and disappear into the dirt forever. She’s coming to the conclusion that Sokka will hate her forever and wish he had left her _there_ when she realizes that someone is talking. 

“Please, just a sip, Suki.” 

She blinks and looks to her left. Sokka is squatting some two feet from her, holding out a water skin. He lets out what is unmistakably a breath of relief when she looks at him. He’s watching her with wide eyes and says, “Here,” as he holds the water to her. She drops her eyes to the ground and starts to cry.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, Suki.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry.”

“Suki, please look at me.”

She’s nearly nauseous with shame and doesn’t know how she’s able to raise her head to face him and his stupidly concerned eyes. It breaks her all over again to see him so scared. He swallows. 

“Is it okay if I hold you?”

_Of course,_ she wants to scream, _I nearly let you have me_. It might have been only minutes ago, but it feels like a different life. She wants to nod and really hopes she nods and is sure she managed to nod because Sokka nods back and wraps her in his arms. It’s only now that she feels safe that she realizes how scared she is and clings to him. He runs one hand up and down her back and uses the other to raise the skin and coax water into her mouth. When she has managed a few sips, he seems satisfied and makes to stand. Her legs tremble with the effort and she is embarrassed when he lifts her up with a hand behind her knees and below her back. He carries her back toward his tent, pausing right outside. 

“Do you want me to take you back to your own—“

“No!”

“Okay,” Sokka says, and if it’s hard to climb into his tent while carrying her, he doesn’t show it. He lays her down on his bedroll and covers her in his own threadbare blanket before lying down and facing her. He pushes a strand of hair back from her face and she shuts her eyes right. 

“I don’t know what that was, what happened,” she whispers. It’s easier to say it with her eyes closed. “I’m sorry.”

“You have nothing to be sorry about.”

“That’s...I’ve never...” She opens her eyes. “I ruined your night, Sokka.”

“No, you didn’t. You’re here and you’re safe and, really that’s all I care about.” The way he’s staring at her unblinkingly almost makes her believe him, so when he asks if he can kiss her cheek, she nods and falls into the feel of it. 

“I hate feeling like this. Weak. Dependent.”

“Depending on people doesn’t make you weak, Suki. Even the strongest people need to be comforted sometimes.”

“That sounds like something only the truly strong would say.”

“You would know. You’re the strongest person I’ve ever met.” He brushes a tear from her cheek. “When was the last time you let someone really comfort you? When was the last time you let someone hold you?”

“I let you comfort me at Boiling Rock.”

“Before that. Before me. When was the last time you let someone take care of you?”

Willing herself not to cry, she tells him “My dad.”

But she doesn’t want to say that her dad died when she was five and that no one comforted her then. That her mom decided she didn’t want her and left her on Kyoshi Island without a goodbye. That she was told to leave her old life with all of its sadness and hurt at the door. That it wasn’t until she was fourteen and tragedy struck again and she was left in charge of the Kyoshi Warriors that there was suddenly no one around to tell her that tears have no place on the face of a Kyoshi Warrior. That she wanted to hold the younger girls who were scared and alone, but tears have no place on the face of a Kyoshi Warrior.

She doesn’t want to say that Hakoda left Sokka and Katara so that they would be safe, so that he could keep them safe. She doesn’t want to say that he came back. She doesn’t want to say “My mom didn’t want me anymore.”

She doesn’t want to say that when she arrived at Boiling Rock that they stripped her and searched her and laughed when she tried not to cry.

She doesn’t want to say that Sokka is the first person she’s let hold her in a decade. That he’s the first person since her dad to touch her and it’s not a fight.

Because Suki is a girl and Suki is a warrior, but that doesn’t mean that the Kyoshi Warriors don’t have their own problems. That they are girls but that doesn’t make them girly. That the Kyoshi Warriors don’t still demonize the very things the rest of the world calls feminine.

She doesn’t want to tell Sokka that she doesn’t know how to cry. That she doesn’t know how to be sad and she doesn’t know how to be comforted.

She doesn’t want to tell Sokka that no one who has cared about her has ever stayed.

So she leaves it at that. “My dad.”

And Sokka nods and says, “I will hold you forever. Whenever you need me.”

She wants to believe him. She really does. So she shuts her eyes and lets herself fall into a dream where it can be true. 

She wakes slowly, blinking in the half light of the tent. There’s a flash of brightness as the flap opens and she hears Sokka say in a voice that’s not quite right, “Hey, you’re awake.” Despite the strangeness of his tone, he smiles when he sits down beside her.

She reaches for his cheek. “Are you okay?” she asks. “What time is it?”

“Not too late,” he answers with a kiss. “Toph’s still asleep. I made something for you.”

From behind his back, he pulls out a garland of wildflowers. “Ta-da!” He places it on her head, grinning.

“I don’t deserve you,” she says, and she believes it.

“Nonsense.” He kisses her cheek. “I’ve been told I’m quite the catch and you, Suki, are a fucking goddess.”

She leans into him, pressing her face into his neck so that he doesn’t see the effect of his words on her. She stays like that, breathing him in, until she feels as though she can once again control her face. But when she looks up, there’s still something there. She places her hand on his cheek.

“You’re sad.”

He turns to kiss the palm of her hand. “I’m fine.”

“Sokka.”

“It’s nothing.”

“There’s no such thing.”

“I haven’t seen you in an hour, that’s something to be sad about.”

Suki leans back and stares at him. “It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it,” she tells him. “But you don’t have to pretend.”

At first, he doesn’t say anything. He just keeps looking at her as though the answers to the universe are tattooed across her face and she can’t bring herself to be self-conscious. Then, so suddenly she nearly jumps at the movement, he takes her hand.

“Let’s go for a walk.”

They make their way out of the tent and Suki is glad that no one is paying enough attention to realize how bleary-eyed she is leaving Sokka’s tent in the morning. After a quick moment to go to the bathroom or wash their faces, with a bag in one hand and Suki in the other, Sokka guides her away from the cliffs and shore and into the woods on the other side of their campsite.

“I don’t want to see Katara right now,” he says by way of explanation.

Suki forces herself to not say anything. There are two reasons she can think of for why Sokka doesn’t want to see his sister and his tone suggests that it’s probably not the option they’d both find more pleasurable. She has seen Sokka and Katara bicker on many occasions, but it’s always quickly forgotten. Suki knows that Katara is everything to Sokka and the idea of him not wanting to see her is startling.

“I’m here,” she tells him, squeezing his hand. “Always.”

He returns the squeeze and glances back at her over his shoulder. “I know. I just...I need space. I…”

If Suki was startled before, it is nothing compared to how she feels when Sokka’s voice cracks and he suddenly comes to a stop and drops her hand, his breath coming in hard pants. 

“Sokka?”

He sniffs and lets out a sigh. “I love her,” he says, turning around to face Suki. “More than anything in the world. And she’s the smartest, kindest person I know. So I don’t get why she’s such dumb asshole sometimes. Like, a fucking...jerk.”

“You’re allowed to say ‘bitch,’ Sokka.”

He wipes an angry tear from his face. “It’s sexist.”

“You can be a bitch, too, Sokka. So can Aang and Zuko.”

“Fine, Katara’s being a bitch. Happy?”

“Of course not!” She reaches out for his hands and is relieved when he lets her take them. “I love Katara. And you’re right: there’s no one kinder. But she’s a kid and kids can be bitches. And if you want to talk about what she did, I’m here. I don’t have any siblings, but I hear they can suck sometimes.”

Sokka nods. And then, for a third time, surprises her. “Zuko thinks he knows who killed our mom.”

Honestly, it’s about the last thing Suki’s expecting and all she can manage is a soft, “Oh!”

“Yeah, that’s what he wanted to talk about last night. And Katara wants to go after him. She wants revenge.”

“And you?”

“I don’t know. I...I really don’t know. I hate him and I want him dead. But…” He breaks off in a deep breath and shuts his eyes. Still holding his hands, Suki steps forward until she’s against him. He presses his face into her hair and she can feel his tears and words against her skin. “But killing him won’t bring Mom back. And he’s _nothing_. He doesn’t deserve Katara’s effort or rage. I don’t know, Suki. Anger just feels...what I used to feel for Zuko, that was anger. I didn’t know it then, but anger’s forgivable. And this guy? He doesn’t deserve the courtesy of anger or of even being remembered. And Aang says she should forgive. And it’s not that I think she should forget. She has to remember Mom and what Fire Nation has done to us. But this one person? Killing him isn’t justice. Destroying Ozai and the systems that let him kill my mother is justice.”

“And did you tell Katara this?”

Sokka shakes his head. “I told her to listen to Aang and not take revenge. It’s the same result. We focus on the cruel system, not the weak individuals who follow it. That’s all I want. She doesn’t have to give up everything for individual revenge. And I told her that I get it, that she’s my mom, too, and she—she said that I didn’t, that I don’t….she said that I don’t love…”

Suki tightens her embrace of him and breathes against him, “Oh, Sokka.” He doesn’t need to finish his sentence and she couldn’t dream of making him. So she holds him tight and says nothing but his name as he cries.

(But she can’t help but think about the man in her arms and how different he is from the boy she met all those months ago. Maybe, one day, she’ll tell him the difference. Maybe, one day, he’ll teach her how to be brave enough to cry.)

His breath slows to a hiccough and, still holding each other, they sit and lean against a fallen tree.

“I’m not angry,” he says at last. “I know that Katara seems all grown up. And I know she thinks she is and that I let her think she is. But she’s just a kid. And she’s hurt, Suki. We were both hurt that day. When our mom died, I think a part of us went with her. And Katara...Katara’s still young enough and hopeful enough that she can believe she can fix that hurt. I don’t think she’s learned yet that we just have to live with it, alway. And I admire that—she’s always been the optimist. And I know she hurts and I know she wants to stop hurting. And she blames herself. Both for what happened and that she’s still hurting. And maybe I haven’t always been honest enough with her. Maybe she thinks I’ve found a way to make the hurt stop instead of living with it. Maybe it was on purpose. Maybe she just wanted to remind me of the hurt.”

“That doesn’t make what she said okay.”

“I know. I know that. And even knowing she didn’t mean it doesn’t mean it didn’t really hurt.” He leans his head against her shoulder. “Thank you”

“What for?”

“Listening?” he says, as if he’s unsure of the answer. “Being you. I’ve never trusted anyone the way I trust you before.”

“That makes two of us.”

He lets out a watery laugh and taps her forehead with his.

“How are you?” he whispers.

“I’m fine,” she says. When she feels him raise his eyebrow against her, she adds, “This isn’t about me.”

“People don’t take turns existing, Suki. Just because I’m hurting doesn’t make your hurt go away.”

“My hurt’s not important.”

Sokka pulls away abruptly and, suddenly, his eyes are not the calm sea of dawn, but the raging ocean as the storm breaks. “Don’t say that,” he says, and she doesn’t think anyone has ever spoken to her in such earnest. “Everything you feel is important to me. Always. Good or bad. Don’t ever, _ever_ say your feelings aren’t important.”

Nodding, if only to show she has heard him, Suki presses her lips to his cheek. “Do you remember what I said the first time I kissed you?”

“‘A warrior,’” he repeats. “‘But a girl, too.’”

“I’ve always been a Warrior first,” she says. “A girl warrior, I never forgot that. But I never let myself be more the girl, the person. I’ve never cared if people saw me as a girl, as long as they saw me as a warrior.”

“It’s hard to feel when you tell yourself you can only be a warrior.”

“You’re the first person I wanted to be both a warrior and a person with.”

For a moment, that is enough. They fall into each other, tentative and soft. And Suki is naive enough to believe she will never hurt again. That in letting Sokka name her feeling “hurt” and in hearing his own and knowing his own and trying to hold him as her own, she believes that this creature, once named, cannot harm her anymore. So she basks in holding and being held, in kissing and being kissed. She laughs when he pulls jerky from his bag and teases when he splits it with her, fifty-fifty.

(And she grins as she says, “Look over there!” and sneaks a piece of hers into his pile. And her insides warm when he kisses her and does the same.)

But as they walk back to camp after sundown, Suki can see that brilliant mind working and wonders whose hurt he is trying to fix. They’re nearly back at his tent (there’s no question where she wants to be and where he wants her to be) when Aang appears in the night.

“We missed you at dinner.”

“We had a picnic.”

Aang nods. “That’s what Toph said and that I shouldn’t bother you, but I could have used your help.”

“I’m not your weapon against Katara,” Sokka says bluntly.

Aang holds up his hands. “I know. But she and Zuko are stealing Appa.”

Sokka curses and drops Suki’s hand. “I’m coming,” he says. “But just for the visual. I know better than to try and control Katara.” He turns to Suki. His face is calm and controlled and Suki can see how little his earlier anger matters. She wonders what it must be like, to love someone so deeply that no matter how angry you are, you will always take care of them.

“I won’t be long,” he tells her. “Wait up.”

“Take as long as you need.”

They both ignore Aang’s gawk of disgust when they kiss.

Once the boys leave, Suki lets herself into Sokka’s tent. She kicks off her shoes and her red pants. She tells herself that they’re sweaty and dirty from sitting in the woods and that her red tunic is long enough to be a dress. Almost. If you ignore the slits up the side. She tucks her feet under her and waits. Sokka’s not long, maybe five minutes, and he’s slipping back into the tent.

“She’s going,” he says. “And maybe it will give her the closure she needs.”

“And you?”

Sokka shrugs. “Like I said, she can try for closure, but she won’t be able to make the hurt go away. But she has to figure that out for herself.”

“So she and Zuko went off on Appa and now we just...wait?”

Sokka nods and nudges her. “I told Aang and Toph to go to bed so that they can work on earthbending in the morning.”

Suki laughs. “And us?”

“Oh, we’ve got plenty to do.”

She wraps her arms around him and kisses him without a second thought. She thinks, just maybe, if she can kiss him enough, the last twenty-hours might disappear and she can once more be a carefree teenager in his arms and not worry about the world. But the world is still there and no amount of kissing can stop it.

And when Sokka pulls back, there’s no amount of kissing at all.

He gives her a soft smile. “I was actually thinking somewhere in the talking realm.”

“Meh.”

“The talking about you realm.”

“Or,” Suki says, “you can kiss me. I talk too much, remember?”

“I’m being serious, Suki. This isn’t you spiraling in unwarranted embarrassment for wanting to kiss a guy who really, really wanted to kiss you back. This isn’t that simple.”

“It can be! It’s very simple. All you have to do is kiss me. Watch, I’ll show you.”

But Sokka puts his hands on her arms and holds her back. It’s silly to want to cry right now. She doesn’t know why she wants to cry right now.

“This isn’t fair,” she tells him, even though she doesn’t know what “this” is.

But Sokka says, “You’re right. It’s not.”

So Suki leans back and crosses her arms over her chest. She wishes she had kept her red pants on. Really, what’s a red tunic but an oversized red shirt?

“Fine,” she says. “Talk.”

“What happened last night?”

“I told you. I don’t know.”

Sokka swallows. “I won’t make you tell me anything you don’t want to tell me. Not ever. But you can’t ask me to...No, sorry, _I_ can’t just keep going when you don’t even know what happened. Because if you push it all down, it’ll happen again. And I will never let myself cause you pain. Even if it means not doing stuff I would honestly really like to be doing.”

“You mean you won’t have sex with me.”

Sokka flushes, but holds her gaze. “Not never,” he clarifies. “But I’ll wait as long as you need me to to be comfortable.”

“What if I don’t want to wait?”

“I was thinking, when Aang was talking to Zuko and Katara.”

“This is a really weird segue.”

Sokka nods. “But it made you smile.”

“Barely.”

“Barely’s enough.” He holds out his hand and Suki would like to think that she reluctantly takes it. But neither of them can deny that desperation.

“Katara saw her, right after it happened.”

Suki lets out a soft gasp, but Sokka only squeezes her hand before continuing.

“She had gone to get Dad and she got back inside, to where Mom was, before he could stop her. I didn’t...I didn’t see her. But Katara did. For over a year after that, she cried every time someone lit a fire. She tried to hide it, but she would run away, every time. And, um, we didn’t cook much at first. Everyone took care of us. But the first night Gran-Gran cooked afterwards, the second she started cooking the meat, Katara started sobbing. She couldn’t breathe and she was so scared. She cried so hard she made herself sick. I don’t really know how to explain it, but for a long time, every time we cooked, she was suddenly back there, finding mom all over again.”

“That’s horrible,” Suki can finally bring herself to say. Sokka nods.

“I didn’t understand for a long time. But then, when we were crossing Serpent’s Pass, every time there was the slightest risk to you—I wasn’t just aware of the possibility of you getting hurt, Suki. I just suddenly felt like I had already lost you. And it was terrifying. And I wasn’t myself, but it didn’t matter because, in those moments, I know what it would feel like to lose you. And I can’t ever do that.”

Suki nods. For as long as she can, she pretends this is only about him. That he is telling her this just to get it off his chest. That this is about Sokka and about Katara and has nothing to do with Suki. But she doesn’t want to lie anymore. Not even to herself. 

“I think,” she says at last, “I think you’re trying to say that something happened last night and I remembered something and lost myself”

Sokka doesn’t say anything. He moves closer and gently places his arm over her shoulder. And, when she leans into him, he just holds her tight without asking her to speak.

For the first time, Suki wants to speak.

“I’ve never had sex,” she says before she can stop herself. “I’ve never even kissed anyone besides you. And...and...and in a room full of guards they made me prove I wasn’t hiding anything.” She says it all in one breath, as if saying it quick enough it will disappear. But doesn’t. It’s not really a memory. It’s reliving it all over again. 

She curses Sokka for teaching her how to cry.

“They followed me everywhere and said it was for my own protection and in the shower once they pulled my hair and told me I smelled like a virgin and some nights I woke up and could swear I heard one of them breathing. And everywhere I went there were so many hands everywhere and I couldn’t fight them all, I couldn’t fight any of them because if I went to the cooler, there was no one nearby and having people in hearing distance was the only thing that kept me safe because they were everywhere.”

She wants to continue. She wants to tell him that she wants him to touch her, that she needs him to touch her because when she thinks about being touched, she wants to remember only him and only that feeling of being absolutely adored and utterly respected. But when she tries to say it, a raw sob breaks over her lips. She doesn’t know how she said it. She doesn’t know how she’s still breathing, but she is. And she cries harder.

Sokka starts to pull her tighter, but freezes. His hand is still on her back but he’s stopped stroking. And eventually he says “And then I came in in their uniform and I—“

“No!” She doesn’t care how loud her voice is. She will not let him feel guilty for loving her and so she tells him, adamantly. “That’s different,” she swears. “I _love_ you.”

She leans into him and silently begs him to just keep holding her. When his hand resumes its soft strokes of her back, she continues.

“I waited every single day, Sokka, because there were only two options. That you and Aang and Katara and Toph would win. That the war would end and I’d be free and we’d find each other. I never doubted that, Sokka. Not ever.”

“But we haven’t won. Not yet.”

“So then there’s option two: that, one day, you would find me. That one day my cell would open and you would be there. And now...now, all I want—”

She cuts herself off with a choked sob and hears her name on the wind of his lips.

“Anything,” he breathes. “Whatever you want.”

“Just hold me?”

She knows his answer, but it leaves her mouth as a question regardless. And when he squeezes her tight and says, “I am,” she begs him, “Please, don’t stop.”

She’s never begged before.

“I won’t,” he tells her. “Not ever.”

She knows it’s impossible just as much as she knows he’s telling the truth. This must be what it is to trust someone completely. And she does. She has for longer than she’s known. She thinks of the days and nights at Boiling Rock where he comforted her from a world away. And part of her thinks it’s insane. She’s met him twice before now. Just twice. But his very existence holds her steady and she tightens her arms around him and knows he feels the same way.

They sit there, holding each other for so long that Suki half expects to open her eyes to sunrise or the war ending or Sokka, wrinkled and gray. But when she does, it is still night and there is still a war and they are both so very young. She turns her head to kiss his jaw.

“We should go to sleep,” he says.

And though she nods, she can see her pants in their dull red crumple in the corner of the tent and she can feel her red tunic rubbing against her skin.

“My clothes are so dirty, I feel like I shouldn’t…”

“All our clothes are dirty.” He almost laughs as he says it, but she doesn’t hear him, not really.

“It’s so red,” she continues. “It’s not a dress, it’s a men’s shirt.”

“Okay.” Sokka kisses her cheek. Then he pulls away. Suki can feel the tears welling in her eyes again and she hates it, hates it, hates it. Hates the tears and hates the men’s shirt and the prison uniform and the red and then

Sokka kneels in front of her again and takes her shirt.

“Okay?” he says again.

She nods, too in love to feel like a child and she lifts her arms and he pulls it over her head and tosses it to the side. He takes his own spare clothes and they are so, so blue. And he pulls his shirt down over her and his spare pants up her legs.

“A little roomy,” he says softly. “But I think you can pull it off.”

She thinks back to yesterday and the fantasy of being undressed by him. But the reality of being dressed is better than any fantasy she can imagine.

Clean and soft and blue, she lets him lay her down and she wraps her arms around him and, now, she knows.

The warrior can break just like the girl and the warrior can be held just like the girl.

It’s what makes the warrior strong, just like the girl.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
